Saturday, January 28, 2012

Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery (1824-1901)

The
name of Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery “Champion-At-Arms of the Two Americas,” appeared
in ten (see list at bottom of post) mostly sword and cape dime novels published
in Beadle’s Dime Library between 1879
and 1882. There is the possibility that Monstery’s name was merely
window-dressing, a celebrity ‘house-name’ that hid the identity of one or more
ghost authors.

The
most likely ghost would be Captain Frederick Whittaker who had some obvious
connections to Monstery. Whittaker’s name appears as author to the sequel to
Monstery’s novel California Joe’s FirstTrail (1884) and Whittaker authored TheSword Prince, the Romantic Life of Colonel Monstery in 1889. In addition
Whittaker’s Ernest Darcourt, from The
Young Folks Weekly Budget, Vol. 29, July 3 1886, published in London by
James Henderson, and Monstery’s Mourad
the Mameluke, from Beadle’s Dime New
York Library, Oct 26 1881, share the same historical Mameluke background. Whittaker
wrote The Russian spy: or, the Brothers
of the Starry Cross in 1878 -- Monstery penned The Czar’s Spy; or, the Nihilist League
for the same publisher in 1881.

The hero of Iron Wrist, the Swordmaster
was Danish Swordsman Olaf Swenson. He is eighteen in this story which takes
place in St. Petersburg. Swenson reappears in El Rubio Bravo, a bit older, hacking and thrusting his way through
Honduras, and in The Czar’s Spy he is
56 years old and back in St. Petersburg. You might call this a trilogy. In
Whittaker’s Romantic Life of Colonel Monstery
it is claimed that Monstery himself was “El Rubio Bravo” (the brave blonde.)

In
most dime novel’s violence is depicted in a flat and unconvincing way, while
the violence in Monstery is shocking and realistic. From Mourad, the Mameluke;

“The
belated one drew his sword and aimed a blow at the Mameluke, who took it on his
left arm with a clang that told he wore armour under his rich garments, and
retaliated with a slash across the other’s face, made apparently with little
effort. Lafangere, who had turned at the gate, uttered a cry of horror.

The
Mameluke’s saber, with the sharp sickle edge,had
sliced off the Frenchman’s head at the mouth as if it had been a carrot.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs mentions Monstery in his swashbuckler The Mad King (1926) and one could speculate that
Burroughs took a lot from the sword and cape dime novels of Colonel Monstery
(or Frederick Whittaker) from the beginning of his career, starting with Under the Moons of Mars, serialized in All-Story in 1912. By merging the
swashbuckler with the scientific romance he came up with something entirely
original. All Burroughs greatest heroes used blades: John Carter, Carson
Napier, and Tarzan. Burroughs was born 1
Sept 1875 which made him the right age (and right place: Chicago, where
Monstery was a huge celebrity) to have been reading the Monstery sword and cape
dime novels.

Probably a lot of Whittaker’s “Romantic Life” is exaggerated but there is some truth to his tales. Both his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, Col. Monstery is Dead, 2 Jan 1902 and A Famous Swordsman, Romantic Career of a visitor to the City of Mexico
[From the Mexican Herald] Washington Times, 29 Jan 1901, tell some
of the same story as appears on the Wikipedia entry on Monstery.

According to the newspaper accounts (which may
also be exaggerated) Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery, “soldier of fortune, expert
swordsman, and hero of hundreds of skirmishes and battlefields” was born in
Baltimore, Maryland on 21 April 1824. In his early days his name was Tom
Munster. Newspaper accounts say he was of Danish and Irish parentage. His
Wikipedia entry claims otherwise -- both parents are Danish -- his mother was
the daughter of the cousin of the assassin of King Gustav III of Sweden.

At twelve his parents took him to Copenhagen
where he was enrolled in the Royal Academy. A series of duels brought him to
the attention of the authorities and he fled to Russia where he was a fencing
instructor in the Czar’s household. More dueling troubles followed and he fled
again, back to America and San Francisco. He fought with the Walker expedition
in Nicaragua and in the Cuban insurrection of 1851. He then went to Spain,
Honduras, and service in the Mexican Army under Juarez.

The Washington
Times wrote:

He bears the honor
of being the champion swordsman of the continent, and wears a medal awarded by
the Mexican government on the first of March 1858, for having defeated the
famous French captain Poupard, who was at that time instructor in fencing and
foiling in the army of Mexico. On the same day he won laurels by defeating all
the champions of the army with sabres, knives, knives against sabres and
bayonets, that at the time were shining lights in the handling of the above
weapons.

Captain Monstery
entertained General Diaz at the Palmer House some sixteen years ago in Chicago,
the only visit paid by the President of this Republic to the United States…

In 1871 Monstery opened a fencing school in New
York and a few years later moved operations to Chicago. He trained Junius Brutus
Booth, the actor, (at Frank Wheeler’s San Francisco Gymnasium), Edwin Booth
(for a staged “Hamlet”), and the actress and swordswoman Jaguarina.

Jaguarina was Ella M. Hattan, born in 1864, a
child actress and comedienne in John A. Ellsler’s Cleveland stock company. She
started fencing at a young age and afterward studied under Monstery. Her
swashbuckling career was summed up by the San
Francisco Call 13 Aug 1905:

Under his
instruction she became the greatest fencer in America, especially with the
broadsword, both in foot or mounted contests. To-day she has the record of
forty two broadsword contests with noted male fencers on foot and horseback,
winning every contest.

In 1886 she
challenged Duncan Ross in San Francisco to meet her with broadswords on
horseback. Ross declined to accept her challenge and left the coast.
Subsequently she defeated Sergeant Owen Davis of the Second Calvary, champion
of the United States army, in Mechanic’s Pavilion, San Francisco, in a mounted
contest, by a score of eleven pints to seven. Davis knocked her off her horse
in the second attack, but, undaunted, she remounted and defeated him.
Subsequently she defeated Captain E. C. Jennings, master-at-arms of the Olympic
Athletic Club of San Francisco, in a mounted contest by a score of eleven to
ten points. Both Davis and Jennings had previously defeated Ross, which shows
she was not presumptuous in her belief that she could defeat the giant Scotch
athlete.

Notwithstanding her
hard training in athletics, Jaguarina is a splendidly preserved woman of
striking beauty.

Monstery died impoverished at the Presbyterian
Hospital in Chicago on 31 Dec 1901. He was “practically without resources, but
in Alexander B. Scully, President of the Scully Iron and Steel Company, and
Thomas Moran, the liquor dealer, he found stanch and helpful friends.”

Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery
Dime Novels:

Iron Wrist, the Sword-master; a Tale of Court
and Camp,
New York: Beadle & Adams, Dime Library No.
82, 3 Dec 1879. Originally published under title: Iron Wrist, the Swordmaster of Copenhagen in either the Saturday Journal or Banner Weekly Beadle story
papers. Reprinted 1897 in Dime Library No. 986.

The Demon Duelist; or, the League of Steel, a
Story of German Student Life, Dime Library No. 126, 23 Mar 1881.

Profile

Cartoonist, illustrator, storyteller, born in Nelson, B.C. in May 1950, has contributed to Chronicle, Weirdom, and Visions fanzines. John illustrated ‘Ronald and the Dragon’ by Lawrie Peters in 1975. Email: adcock34@gmail.com